In a recent trip to the medieval city of Arezzo in Tuscany, Italy, I got to take a behind-the-scene view of the flag-wavers practicing in preparation of the city’s upcoming Giostra del Saracino (more on that later). Despite the fact that the team has been performing the art of flag-waving since 1960, it’s never an easy task to keep the flags afloat, let alone with grace.

While we as bystanders tend to focus on the time of performance, I appreciated the practice when it reminded me that at times, just like life, things don’t always go the intended way. There are moments when we feel we almost “dropped the ball”:

And other times when we are completely swamped:

As someone puts it:“winners find solutions, losers make excuses.” I am sure the flagwavers never let the weight of the flag staff or the sun glaring into their eyes become what stands in the way of putting out the best orchestrated show every time, even when it means sometimes blood would be shed, which unfortunately happened in this practice.

In terms of the small price that I paid to bring back these images? Let’s just say we were in a unique spot (photographically speaking) which happened to be a nice shelter for blood-sucking insects. And, it didn’t help when we were the only two warm bodies there. :P